LAWN AND DOCKYARD 



ties whatever, if care is taken to apply the pollen 

 to the pistil when it is fully mature. 



To make sure of this it is well to apply the 

 pollen on several successive days. With some spe- 

 cies the maturing of the pistil is marked by its 

 curving upward; in others it elongates rapidly, 

 the result in either case being to place the pistil 

 where it will be likely to receive pollen from the 

 large moths or the humming-birds that ordinarily 

 fertilize tubular blossoms of this type. 



WORKING WITH THE RESPONSIVE DAHLIA 



Apropos of the pollenizing, it may be well to 

 call attention to difficulties that confront the 

 worker when he deals with the composite flowers, 

 of which the various sunflowers and the dahlia 

 furnish familiar examples. The peculiarity of the 

 composite flower, it will be recalled, is that a large 

 number of blossoms are gathered in a single head, 

 about which a conspicuous circle of ray flowers or 

 florets is displayed. 



This is an example of communism in the plant 

 world, as a single circle of petal-like appendages 

 is made to serve as an advertisement to insects 

 for all the numerous blossoms of the cluster, 

 whereas ordinary flowers have a set of petals for 

 each individual blossom. But whereas this ar- 

 rangement is eminently satisfactory from the 

 standpoint of the plant itself, the grouping of 

 flowers in a mass obviously complicates the prob- 

 lem of the hand pollenizer. 



[195] 



